Meituan Lands Its First International Partnerships in Autonomous Delivery

With this latest move at CES 2019, the delivery and services company is pushing its autonomous delivery capabilities.

Tencent-backed Meituan Dianping (HKEX: 3690) is expanding on a global scale as the company announced it landed its first strategic partnerships outside China "aiming to develop a complete industry value chain for autonomous delivery."

Meituan, China's leading online marketplace for services that include food delivery and ticket bookings, said Tuesday that at CES 2019, the Consumer Electronics Show taking place this week in Las Vegas, it partnered with Valeo from France, Nvidia Corp. from the United States, and Icona from Italy.

"With the surging demand for food deliveries in China, Meituan is leveraging its platform and scale advantages to apply autonomous delivery technologies in its operations," Puzhong Wang, senior vice president of Meituan, said in a statement.

"We would like to work together with our partners to integrate resources from all parties to drive the large-scale and commercial application of autonomous delivery in China and around the world," he added.

Under the arrangement, automotive supplier Valeo will supply components for Meituan's delivery vehicles, Meituan said. Nvidia will provide technical support for autonomous delivery, and Icona will help with design of autonomous robots and vehicles.

Meituan has been backed by Chinese social media and gaming titan, Tencent Holdings Ltd. (HKEX: 0700), which committed $400 million to its IPO in Hong Kong in September.

The platform, which offers a broad range of services, including movie ticketing, food delivery, hotel, and travel booking, as well as ride-hailing, is battling fierce competition from two other Chinese giants, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) and Didi Chuxing.

With its latest move, Meituan is pushing its driverless delivery services. At CES, the company showcased the Meituan Autonomous Delivery solution, its intelligent dispatch system, and Meituan Brain, a project in the works aiming to build the world's largest knowledge map for catering and entertainment.